I'd like to point this question at Dhab, but also at everyone else reading this.

!------Question------!

Do you all consider Anime/Manga as a viable art form and do you practice it???

I have seen Dhabs work since he was back on the Realm 1.0 (as chapel), and I haven't seen any prominent anime work, but I'd like to see his ability (but only if he considers it a real art form).
He sure does some great stuff. Amazing.

I would classify Anime as a Style of art. The Anime style is not only viable but begining to emrge as a marketing tool for companies now. Anime is influencing advertisers, cartoonists (check powerpuff girls, that reaks of anime) and movies. George Lucas and Steven Spielburg are huge anime fans.

Yeah, I completely agree with you. I don't know if you guys have ever seen whirlgirl, but that is anime-heavy as well (though I wouldn't say true anime). I am a big videogame player, and I see anime all the time in videogames.

Why wouldn't it be a valid art form? As with any style, there's good stuff and bad stuff, but the good stuff is often quite incredible. I'm a huge fan of Masamune Shirow -- he's been doing some amazing digital stuff lately.

I am a bit wary about Western artists doing "anime" stuff. It seems to me that artists often deliberately affect the exact style of certain anime, rather than developing a style of their own.

That said, once or twice a year I get on a huge anime kick buy tons of manga and try to draw anime stuff for a few weeks. Here's an anime-style portrait of a friend that I did last time:
http://fetus.ice.org/temp/darkmoon.gif

That anime flat-shading style is deceptively difficult to get right...

No doubt that anime is an art style. The fact that its distinguishable from any other form of art makes it an art style I kinda grew up on that style of art living in asia and think there is heavy anime influence in lot of western movies especially. I think i tried duplicating the anime style once in highschool but it came out looking like a disney cartoon....its not as easy as it looks